I really enjoyed this reading. Which is not exactly the case for majority of my academic readings. But I was intrigued by the story of Giambattista Vico, an Italian professor of  rhetoric who lived from 1668 to 1774. His ideas about imagination being the root of human knowledge and achievement and the thought that metaphor and “ingenium” or “the innate human ability to grasp similarities or realationships,”(171) were the roots of humanity and language itself, made perfect, beautiful, sense to me. Vico argued that this poetic kind of thinking, in opposition to the views of his day, actually created new new knowledge, while more logical and rational thinking simply “reformulates things already known.” (171) While this may or may not be completely true, it certainly is compelling.  After all, I find it hard to believe that rational and logical thinking sent a man to the moon. First there had to be a dream, an inspiration! Poetical thinking is what moves civilizations and cultures forwards, despite what Enlightenment and modern great minds might thing.